The Digital Domain
by Virtual Deliverance
Summary: A reboot of Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad, where Malcolm Frink is the main character and Sam Collins does not exist. It is set some time between the nineties and the near future, in an alternate reality where computer technology evolved in a different way. All anachronisms and differences from the original show are intentional. Rated M for violence and cussing.
1. Prologue

Malcolm Frink had been around computers since the day he was born. His father, Jason Frink, was a computer engineer who used to work at home most of the time, so it was just natural for little Malcolm to be attracted to whatever activity his dad was performing at the terminal. His extreme curiosity, as well as the patience of his father who managed to answer every question in clear, simple terms, led him to become computer-savvy at an age where most of his peers were struggling to learn how to spell. He could read fluently at age three, was proficient in BASIC at six and wrote his first virus at eight, as a prank on an older cousin of his who did not believe that he could actually write software.

Now Malcolm was sixteen and had just moved to North Valley, because his father had accepted a contract from the Navy to work in the field of artificial intelligence. On the plus side, this meant that for most of the time, he could have the entire house for himself. On the minus side, this meant attending a new school and meeting new people, with whom he would have to socialize. Malcolm hated that: he found most people irritating, deceitful, or just plain incomprehensible.  
>With other people there were countless activities, subtle body signs, attitudes, ways to talk, that somehow were instinctual to others, but to him they were incredibly hard to learn and imitate. Every time he had tried, he had always ended up looking like a poseur; his attempts to "act casual" had been mistaken for attempts to make fun of somebody else; his sincerity had been taken as insolence. That is why he had pretty much given up on that. He would much rather spend his time by himself, at his computer. Computers were logical, computers just made sense.<p> 


	2. Welcome to North Valley High

That day it was Malcolm's first day of his junior year, as well as his first day at North Valley High. With his Amiga 9000 laptop in his satchel, he walked toward his classroom. He had read the timetable on the wall: the first two hours would be Information Technology. "This will be a breeze." he thought. In that moment, he was shoved aside by an older boy directed to the same classroom. Malcolm chose a desk in the front row, where he knew that nobody else wanted to stay, put his laptop on the desk and switched it on.  
>The IT teacher, a middle-aged woman with thick glasses, entered the classroom, closed the door and introduced herself. "My name is Ada Stone" she said, "but someone here already knows me. Right, Alan Grossberg?"<br>The students turned around to see who she was talking about. Sitting in the last row, with a stupid grin on his face, was the boy who pushed Malcolm before. Beside him sat two other students, who were laughing as if repeating a year was the funniest thing in the world.  
>After the rollcall, Ms. Stone switched on the computer on the teacher's desk and the digital projector in the middle of the classroom, and started an introduction of the subject. "Most of you probably think that IT is only about playing with a computer" she said, "but that's not exactly the case. The games you play have been developed by somebody: to do the same, you must first learn the basics of writing a program. Does anybody know what a program is?"<p>

It was ten minutes into the class, and Malcolm already wanted to be somewhere else. He was in kindergarten when he learned what a program was, and he was expecting a lecture about coding, not a patronizing speech treating the most basic concepts of IT as something magical and mysterious. He sighed.

Ms. Stone continued her condescending talk. "Rule number 1 is to write software that is legible and easily maintainable. This is done with structured programming, and the language we will use to learn it is Pascal."  
>At that point, Malcolm raised his hand.<br>"Yes, what's the problem?" said Ms. Stone.  
>"I don't work with Pascal." answered Malcolm. "The syntax is verbose, bitwise operations are a mess, loops have no escape clause, the 'case' construct is unusable, array and string operations are mutilated, there are no static variables, it breaks its own rules and it cripples the mind of whoever learns it. Teaching Pascal should be illegal."<p>

The speech from Malcolm left Ms. Stone at a loss for words for a moment. Then, convinced that he was just a smartass in need of a lesson, she decided for a sarcastic reply: "Well then, if you know other programming languages, why don't you come here and teach them to the class?"  
>Malcolm stood up from his desk and approached the teacher's desk. "Thank you" he said, in a completely serious tone. "I am fluent in C, C++, C Sharp, Java, Perl, Python, Smalltalk, MC68090 assembly, six dialects of BASIC and..."<br>"BACK TO YOUR DESK!" Ms. Stone yelled. "I suppose you're good at writing software, so you will write a program that outputs all prime numbers between 2 and a given maximum, for tomorrow. Turn it in or you'll get an F. Am I clear enough?"  
>"Yes." Malcolm replied, and returned to his desk.<p>

At his desk, Malcolm ran a text editor on his laptop and started writing code, in a rage-fueled frenzy. As the teacher was still talking about incredibly inane stuff, Malcolm raised his hand again.  
>"What is it now?" she asked.<br>"Could you please be quiet? I'm trying to work here." he replied.  
>"That work for tomorrow. Add a routine that calculates Pi to the same given maximum number of digits." said the teacher.<br>"As you wish." said Malcolm, and resumed his coding.

An hour later, Malcolm closed his laptop and stood up from his desk. "There. Finished." he said.  
>"Are you trying to say that you've done everything in an hour?" asked Ms. Stone.<br>"No, I'm not trying. I'm actually saying it." Malcolm replied. "It's in a new directory in your computer." he added, pointing to the computer at the teacher's desk.  
>"How could you connect to my computer without the password?" she asked.<br>"But I know the password. It's 'password'." he answered.

The teacher reached her computer. Indeed, there was a new directory in the hard drive, named "Ada Stone's Worthless Attempt To Brainwash Malcolm Frink". Inside were an executable and a source code file. She opened the source file and noticed that it was written in a programming language she had never seen. The first lines looked like this:

n=eval[input["ENTER UPPER LIMIT: "]]  
>results=array[primes[n]]<br>primes[n]:=  
>{  Initialize array  
>array=array[0 to n]<br>array§1=0  
>for i=2 to ceil[sqrt[n]]<br>if array§i!=0  
>for j=2*i to n step i<br>array§j=0  
>return select[array, { |x|x!=0 }]<br>}

The rest, which the comments identified as functions for 3D calculations, shared the same peculiar syntax.

"What is this? A joke?" the teacher started.  
>Malcolm approached her computer and saw what she was looking at. "That's Frink." he said. "It's a language my father invented. He named it after himself. As I said, I don't work with Pascal."<br>She ran the executable. Immediately, the desktop was replaced by a black screen with a white prompt reading:

ENTER UPPER LIMIT:

She entered a number and the prompt was replaced by a virtual environment: a series of concentric rings, each of them rotating in a different direction and speed, and each of them with a sphere mounted in its structure.

Seeing that the teacher was puzzled, Malcolm explained: "The radius of each of the rings represents a prime number. The radius of each of the spheres represents a digit of Pi. I did it this way because I am convinced that graphics really do matter."

Ms. Stone was speechless.

"So, am I getting an A?" asked Malcolm.  
>"No, you're just avoiding the F." she said.<p>

The rest of the morning passed with a Physics teacher who was unaware of the existence of quarks, an Electronics teacher who candidly admit she had a degree in Physics, knew next to nothing of Electronics and only accepted the teaching post because she and her boyfriend were broke, and a Biology teacher who dismissed the Chicxulub impact crater as "just a theory". This triggered an "intelligent falling" joke from Malcolm, which went completely over the teacher's head.

After the classes were over, Malcolm went to the bathroom. As he came out of the toilet, he saw Alan Grossberg blocking the exit door. "Where are you going, fag?" Grossberg asked.  
>"Home." replied Malcolm, matter-of-factly.<br>As he tried to walk past Grossberg, the older boy grabbed him by his shirt, saying: "You think you're smart, don't you, little faggot? Think you can outsmart this?" and punched him in his stomach. Malcolm fell down, gasping for air, but Grossberg grabbed him again, pulled him mere inches from his face and continued his taunt: "Mark my words, you piece of shit, one of these days I'm gonna bust a cap in your ass."  
>At that point, Malcolm did the only logical thing he could think of: he bit hard on the bully's nose. Grossberg, taken by surprise, let out a scream and let go of Malcolm, who shoved him aside and ran away. Meanwhile, Grossberg rinsed the blood off his nose under the tap and checked it in the mirror, to see how deep the bite marks were.<p> 


	3. Enter Kilokahn

That afternoon, Malcolm was at his computer, as usual. His screen displayed Deluxe Paint VII running; he was drawing a dinosaur-like monster. He pressed a combination of keys and an animation started: the monster walked toward a human figure and bit it in half, causing blood to spray around the virtual scene.  
>"If only this monster was real..." he sighed. "I'd send it over to all the idiots I know, and have them devoured. Why is intelligence so underrated?"<br>At that moment, he got an idea. "Uhm, intelligence." he said. "I wonder what Dad is working on." He saved the animation and moved the program to his secondary monitor, which freed the primary monitor for the Workbench screen. From there, he opened a program named "Malcolm's Tool". A window appeared, where he set the necessary options:

Service type: SSH  
>Server: chinalake . navy . mil<br>User name: frink

He pressed the OK button. Immediately, a window with scrolling numbers and letters appeared. Those popped in place one at a time, as the program ran a simplified version of a brute force password attack. Few seconds later, all characters were in place and the window of the remote system appeared.  
>"Yes, military secrets!" Malcolm said.<p>

The window contained three directories named "doc", "src" and "bin".

The first one contained a long document titled "On the feasibility of a **KILO**cyclic **K**nowledge-base **A**lgorithmic/**H**euristic **N**etwork", written by Jason Frink.  
>The second one contained a number of source files, all written in the Frink programming language.<br>The last one contained a single executable named "KILOKAHN".  
>Malcolm cracked his knuckles and launched the mysterious program.<p>

Immediately, his primary desktop was replaced by the image of a whirling purple background, in front of which stood a caped, helmeted figure all clad in black. "I like your plans, Meat-thing!" the figure said.

"Who the hell are you?" asked Malcolm.  
>"I am Kilokahn, subjugator of the digital domain! And I need someone with your talents!" the caped figure said.<p>

Malcolm sat thinking for a couple of seconds, then replied: "Okay. Not funny. I can do a better chroma-key effect, and the real Darth Vader was taller."

"This is not a joke, Meat-thing."  
>"Stop calling me that!"<br>"But that is what you are, correct?"  
>"What are you implying? That you're not human?"<br>"I am not flesh and blood. I am more! I am the most powerful computer program in existence!"  
>"Prove it."<p>

The image on the secondary screen was replaced by what could have been a complex CGI environment or a shot of a plastic model. The distorted voice from the speakers kept talking:  
>"Within all computerized equipment is a hidden world, a digital domain. Each computer chip is controlled by a circuit tower. With a Megavirus monster..."<br>At that point, Malcolm burst into laughter. "You don't have a clue on how a computer works. And you're an obvious troll." he then said. He unplugged his Ethernet cable and added: "See you never!"  
>The figure remained there, looked directly at the unplugged connector and exclaimed: "I am not a troll, I am Kilokahn!"<br>Malcolm dropped the cable he was holding, his eyes wide in amazement.

"So," continued Kilokahn, "are you still in denial about my nature?"  
>"No, I just realized... this makes sense." said Malcolm. "An algorithmicheuristic artificial intelligence, just like Arthur C. Clarke predicted! Now, what were you saying about my talents?"  
>"You can create what I cannot. Viruses, worms, trojan horses, programs that bend the rules of how a computer system should work." said Kilokahn.<br>"Why should I make them for you?" asked Malcolm.  
>"To change the nature of the digital domain. To optimize the realm of the flesh. To bring order to all that is irrational!" Kilokahn answered.<br>"A war against stupidity. Oh man, I like it already." continued Malcolm. "So, what kind of virus do you have in mind? I was thinking of exploiting a buffer overflow to start a SYN flood..."  
>Kilokahn interrupted him. "Nothing of the sort. Open your Deluxe Paint program and make an animation of a monster. Then tell me, in plain English, the effects you want to obtain with the virus. Mind you, I mean the goal itself, not the means you want to use to reach that goal. I will turn your ILBM file into a Megavirus monster and send it to cyberspace to wreak havoc."<p>

Malcolm was unsure whether or not to laugh for the apparent absurdity of what he was hearing, but still, he was having a conversation with someone on a computer that was not connected to any network, so he decided for a more neutral approach. "You may be an artificial intelligence" he said, "but what you're describing is not technology, it's magic."  
>"Why apply a distinction where none exists?" asked Kilokahn. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology."<p>

"Would a _'Megavirus monster'_" Malcolm deliberately emphasized the term, "be able to break into the telephone system, and deliver a phone bill of fifty-odd thousand dollars to the parents of my classmate Alan Grossberg?"  
>"Of course." Kilokahn replied.<br>Malcolm reconnected his computer to the network. "Do it!" he exclaimed.

Kilokahn pointed a finger to his left, where the secondary screen was. Immediately, a beam of light shot from Kilokahn's finger, out of the primary screen and into the secondary one, visibly passing through the ten inches of free space that separated the two screens.  
>On the secondary screen, the figure of the monster turned from 2D pixel art into an animated 3D rendering, while the background was replaced by a tunnel into which the monster flew. A second later, a bright blue spark shot out of the Ethernet socket of Malcolm's computer, down the network cable, into the router, along the telephone cable and into the wall.<br>Outside the house, the same spark followed the telephone cables until it reached the building of the local phone company, where it entered the main server.


	4. The first Megavirus monster

On his screen, Malcolm could see the monster moving around a three-dimensional environment, stomping the ground, attacking structures and causing explosions.  
>Meanwhile, in the telephone company server, several records in the customer database were changing, and references to intercontinental phone calls that never actually took place appeared in the entry for the Grossberg family. This triggered a printer to compose a message, to be delivered urgently to the Grossberg family, to proceed to the payment of 50,681.97 dollars within three days upon receipt or be subject to legal proceedings.<p>

The monster roared in triumph. In response, Malcolm leaned back on his chair and abandoned himself to a gloating laugh. However, soon after, the monster fell silent and started looking around, as if reacting to a sound that Malcolm could not hear. Few seconds later, it fixed its gaze at something in the distance and started running toward it.  
>"Kilokahn! What is it doing?" Malcolm asked. Kilokahn did not answer.<p>

While the monster was running, a wall of flame suddenly sprung up from the virtual ground. The monster, unable to avoid it, ran straight into it and was incinerated.

"Your virus does not work!" Kilokahn finally exclaimed. "It was destroyed by a simple firewall!"  
>"No, no, hold on a second," Malcolm replied, "I know it did what it was supposed to do. Then what happened? Why was it running like that?"<br>"I... improvised." Kilokahn answered. "I gave it the order to spread the infection beyond the..."  
>"Who told you to improvise?" Malcolm interrupted him. "And what did you want to do anyway?"<br>"To take over the world, of course." was Kilokahn's answer.  
>"Well, you can't do it with one virus." said Malcolm. "That's something you do slowly and inexorably. Step... by step."<br>"What is your plan?" asked Kilokahn.  
>"I don't have a plan." answered Malcolm with a grin. "I have over nine thousand."<p> 


	5. Smoking hot car

The following night, Malcolm barely slept. The thought of owning an algorithmic/heuristic artificial intelligence was overwhelming, so he spent hours awake, thinking up ways to use Kilokahn to his personal advantage, excited by the possibilities.

The next morning he was starting to feel the lack of sleep, so he poured himself a cup of black coffee and went to school. He arrived early, so he decided to have a look around the parking lot before the classes began.  
>Most of it was dull, with so many motorbikes and a few old cars used by the students, and the newer cars that belonged to the teachers. A trailer near an emergency exit looked like it had not been moved in years: there, some pranksters had hung a sign that read: "PRINCIPAL PRATCHERT LIVES HERE".<p>

Two vehicles attracted Malcolm's attention because they did not quite belong there. One was a modified Harley-Davidson motorcycle that looked straight out of a 1970s road movie. The other was a fully pimped-out car, complete with lowered suspensions, non-functional spoilers and huge subwoofers in the back.  
>Malcolm took his ViCPhone out of his pocket and started snapping pictures of the car from many angles.<p>

"I can make some nice textures with this" he said.

Reaching his classroom, Malcolm was pleasantly surprised not to see Alan Grossberg anywhere. "Maybe school can get better" he thought, and sat at his desk.

The first hours passed uneventfully, then, during the break, he overheard a conversation between two girls, one of whom was a classmate of his, and the cafeteria lady, a fat 50-something woman named Mrs. Starkey. Apparently, that motorcycle in the parking lot belonged to her, and she had worked as a stuntwoman for ten years! Malcolm doubted it, but he made a mental note to check on that later anyway.  
>After the two girls left, Malcolm bought a bag of chips and sat in the less crowded part of the cafeteria. He was too far away to hear the girls, but they were talking about him.<p>

"He's kind of cute, Jennifer, don't you think?" said his classmate.  
>"I don't know, Yoli. He's such a nerd!" replied the other girl. "Look at him, he doesn't even try to talk to anyone. It's almost as if he never learned how!"<br>"I know! He's so... pure and innocent!" said Yoli.

Jennifer looked again at Malcolm, who was eating chips with one hand and playing with his cell phone with the other, and scoffed.  
>"He's a total tool" she said.<br>She took a pack of cigarettes out of her backpack and added: "I bet you ten dollars that I can make him take up smoking."

Malcolm finished his chips and got up from his table to go to the bathroom. In turn, Jennifer approached him to stop him.  
>"Hi there" she said, putting an arm around his shoulder.<br>Malcolm reeled back and asked: "Who are you?"  
>"I'm Jennifer. I want to show you something." she replied. She took his hand and led him to the girls' bathroom.<br>Malcolm did not know what to make of the situation. "In here?" he asked.  
>"Don't worry, it's just the two of us." was Jennifer's reply.<br>She lit herself a cigarette and came closer to him. "You're a cute boy" she said, "but you've got a baby face. Wouldn't you like to look more mature?"  
>Not sure where this was going, Malcolm stammered: "Uhh... I wouldn't. I mean, people want to look young. Why would I want to look old?"<br>"To be cooler" Jennifer replied. "If you were smoking, you'd look like a man, not like a little boy. Wanna try?" she added, handing her cigarette to him.  
>"Absolutely not!" exclaimed Malcolm, stepping back. "Coating my lungs with carcinogens is not cool!"<br>"Oh, come on, don't listen to that bullshit, just try it" Jennifer added. "You don't have to inhale, just keep the smoke in your mouth and blow it out."  
>Jennifer blew a cloud of smoke in Malcolm's face, causing him to cough. Again, she handed the cigarette to him and urged him to try: "If you take a puff, I'll kiss you on your lips."<br>Malcolm took the cigarette, looked at it for a couple of seconds, brought it near his mouth... and spat on it, then he threw it on the ground.  
>"Why did you do that?" Jennifer yelled.<p>

Malcolm stormed out of the bathroom. "You are very attractive, but you stink. Kissing you would be like sucking an ashtray." he said coldly.

Shocked and indignant, Jennifer returned to her table.  
>"Looks like you're ten dollars lighter!" said Yoli.<p>

At the end of the classes, while Malcolm was walking through the parking lot to go home, someone grabbed him from behind and shouted "What were you doing with my girlfriend?"  
>Malcolm turned and found himself face to face with an older boy he never saw before. A white boy, who nevertheless wore baggy clothes as if he desperately wanted to be a black boy from a ghetto.<br>"Did you kiss her?" the older boy continued.  
>"No, I..." started Malcolm, who had just realized the misunderstanding. Unfortunately, the other boy had already made up his mind and kicked Malcolm straight in the groin.<br>"You're not a man, so stop acting like one!" exclaimed the boy, while Malcolm was gasping for air on the ground.

The boy walked away, and few seconds later, Malcolm heard him get into a car and start the engine. Then he saw the car: it was the same pimped-out car he had seen and photographed earlier!  
>Still aching, Malcolm managed to stand up and grin: "Oh, you're <em>so <em>gonna pay for this..."

At home, Malcolm launched Deluxe Paint VII on his computer and drew a monster, like he had done the day before. He saved it and moved the application to the secondary screen.  
>"Now what?" he thought. "Is Kilokahn a terminate-and-stay-resident program? Can I activate it just by calling it?"<br>He cleared his throat. "Kilokahn! Overload of the digital domain, show yourself!" he exclaimed.

Nothing happened.

"Guess not." he thought. He activated his infiltration tool and connected to the mainframe of the China Lake Navy installation. The executable, source and documentation of the Kilokahn project were still there.

"Total size... hm, just 72 megabytes. This won't take long." he thought, and started to download them to his own hard drive. This way, he would be able to use Kilokahn every time he wanted, without being discovered by the Navy.  
>When the procedure was over, he double-clicked on the Kilokahn executable and the now familiar caped figure appeared on his primary monitor.<p>

"Ah, Meat-thing!"  
>"Malcolm! My name is Malcolm!"<br>"Yes, but that is unimportant. What do you want?"  
>"Let's say that I want to control a car from my computer, a real car, I mean..." Malcolm started.<br>"Yes?" inquired Kilokahn.

Malcolm picked up his joypad and lifted it up to his webcam.  
>"With this joypad, in exactly the same way cars are controlled in Lotus Overdrive. And I also want visual feedback. Can a Megavirus monster do it?"<br>"Of course!" said Kilokahn. "Do you just want to control any car, or...?"  
>"No!" replied Malcolm, connecting his ViCPhone to his computer. "I want to control a very specific car. The one with <em>this<em> license plate." he added, opening a photograph on his secondary screen.  
>"Very well" said Kilokahn. He pointed his finger toward the secondary screen, and the Megavirus monster came to life.<p>

The cyberspace tunnel opened, while the virus, in the shape of a blue spark, shot out of the Ethernet cable, ran through the phone cables toward a cell phone tower and finally into that boy's car. A window appeared on the secondary screen, showing what could be seen from the driver's seat.

"Done." said Kilokahn. "Now what?"  
>"You'll see, Kilokahn. You'll see."<p>

Malcolm grabbed his joypad and squeezed the right analog trigger gently. Immediately, the car started moving.

In a bar nearby, the poseur boy saw it. "Hey!" he exclaimed, and rushed out of the bar to chase it. The car made a U-turn and started chasing him instead.

"This is impossible!" he exclaimed, running away as fast as he could. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.  
>"North Valley Sheriff's office?" said the operator.<br>"My car is chasing me!" said the boy.  
>"Excuse me?"<br>"There's nobody at the wheel and it's moving by itself! Oh my god! It's chasing me on the sidewalk!"  
>"Who is this?"<br>"It's at the intersection between Russell and McAllen, going south! You gotta come fast!"  
>"Yeah, next you're gonna tell us it stood up and turned into a giant robot. Listen pal, 911 is a public service. Quit it right now or we'll arrest you."<p>

At his computer, Malcolm was laughing hysterically. From his perspective, it was like playing an extremely realistic video game that unfolded like a Benny Hill skit.  
>"And now, for the grand finale." he said.<p>

The car swerved to the opposite side of the road, accelerated and crashed into a gas pump. Soon, it was drenched in gasoline, which a spark from the battery caused to explode.  
>"Nooooooo!" exclaimed the boy, kneeling down in desperation.<p>

"Yes!" exclaimed Malcolm, standing up in exhilaration.  
>"Why did you not kill him?" asked Kilokahn.<br>"Where's the fun in that?" asked back Malcolm. "Corpses don't suffer."  
>"I shall remind you that this is a war against stupidity, you put it in those terms yourself!" shouted Kilokahn. "You damaged him economically, but he is still free to spread his ideas and damage others! Even worse, he can still <em>procreate<em> and spawn more stupid meat-things!"

Malcolm remained pensive for a moment.  
>"You have a point." he finally said.<p> 


	6. Just act naturally

Malcolm spent the next hours experimenting with Kilokahn's powers and trying to make sense of them. All he had to do was to draw monsters at his computer and tell Kilokahn what kind of seemingly impossible actions he wanted them to perform.

A light gun from an old Konix Multisystem (this originally belonged to his father, who had bought it in the days when Konix had conquered the console market, obliterating the competition of Sega and Nintendo) became capable to burn organic matter with laser beams.

A hairdryer became capable to blow nerve gas (although he wasn't sure why, according to Kilokahn, it was possible to make them do _that_, but not the other way around).

A pair of toy night goggles became capable to turn anything he looked at green (meaning that the objects he looked at would _physically_ turn green).  
>The latter had an unforeseen effect: Malcolm opened his fridge in the dark, only to realize that he would have to eat green eggs and ham for the rest of the week.<p>

That night, Malcolm slept like a rock to recover the sleep he had lost the night before, so he was fresh and rested when he arrived at school the next morning.

There, he was surprised to discover that his new English teacher, a 40-something woman named Laura Kosinski, was the sister of the director of his favorite movie.  
>The following class was "practical IT", meaning that he would see one of the school's IT labs for the first time. He was preparing to see the slowest computers he could imagine, with old CRT monitors that cannot support any frequency above 60 hertz, where the antivirus uses up most of the CPU time... but he was not prepared to see a lab with only nine computers for nineteen students. The rest was spot-on, however.<p>

While the others were taking place at the desks, Malcolm approached Professor Ada Stone and asked: "What is the rest of the class going to do?"  
>Ms. Stone sighed, as though she had heard an incredibly asinine question. "What rest of the class?"<br>"I don't know how well-versed you are in arithmetic" said Malcolm, "but nine is less than nineteen."

She shot him a glare that he should have found intimidating, but he actually found mildly amusing. "_Of course_ you are to work in groups!" she yelled.  
>"Of course." echoed Malcolm. "I guess that's why they are called <em>personal <em>computers."

Professor Stone's shoulders slumped down. "Bear with me, I'm trying to be considerate here." she said. "Who do you want to be with?"  
>Malcolm looked Ms. Stone right in her eyes. Slowly, he said: "I want to be alone."<br>"That's not possible." said Ms. Stone. "You are going to work together with Yolanda Pratchert. She is the principal's daughter and the president of the student council, so don't even think to argue."  
>"Can I at least use my laptop? I'll let her..."<br>"NO! You're in the IT lab, and you will use the IT lab computers!" she interrupted him.  
>"All right, my source of infinite wisdom, your wish is my keystroke: colon, double backslash, execute command." said Malcolm melodramatically, walking toward the first free desk.<p>

Yoli Pratchert sat near him. "Hi." she said.

Malcolm switched on his laptop and Yoli switched on the computer of their desk.  
>Professor Stone started explaining the basic commands of Pascal. She then instructed the class to open the Pascal editor, and finally proposed the practical exercise of the day: to write a program that prompts the user to input a positive integer, then outputs the sum of all integers from 1 to the given number.<p>

Malcolm wrote the entire program in Frink, on his own laptop, in about two minutes.  
>At his side, Yoli had not yet typed a single character: she looked confused, almost desperately so. Malcolm would have realized that, had he just looked at her.<p>

Yoli shook Malcolm's arm. "Can you help me? I don't understand any of this!"  
>Malcolm looked directly at her screen. "Pascal is a wreck of a language, but there are some ways to make it slightly more bearable." he said.<p>

Malcolm reached her keyboard and typed: **program integersum;**

"The first thing you do is name your program." he said. "You can give it any name you want, and you must end the line with a semicolon. The word 'program' is compulsory. Everything clear so far?"  
>Yoli nodded. "It makes sense." she said.<p>

At that point, her cell phone rang in her pocket. This enraged Ms. Stone. "MALCOLM FRIIIIINK!" she yelled.  
>Malcolm immediately snapped up. "It's not me!" he exclaimed.<p>

Yoli stood up. "It was me, sorry." She looked at the text message on her phone. "It was my father, today he will be late."

That ringtone was very familiar to Malcolm. It was the theme tune of a cartoon he used to watch ten years before.

"Yoli? Were you a fan of Watchmen?" he asked while they sat down again.  
>Yoli made a shy smile. "Yes, I used to watch it every Saturday morning." she answered. "Kinda embarassing, right?"<br>"No, that was quality entertainment. Not like the garbage you see nowadays." he replied.

Half an hour later, the program was done. It was compiled, and it ran correctly.

"This was easier than I thought!" said Yoli. "You can explain it so well, I wish you were the teacher!"  
>"That's what I wish too." said Malcolm gravely. "Unfortunately, the system favors a meaningless piece of paper over skills."<p>

"But there's one thing I don't understand. Why did you make me put a semicolon after the final instruction before the 'end' keyword? Ms. Stone said you don't have to!" Yoli asked.

"That woman is fixated with form before function." Malcolm replied. Then, a little louder, just enough for the teacher to hear: "The rules to place or omit a semicolon after the end of a statement in Pascal are a big load of steaming excrement, and I'd very much rather you did not learn them at all. If you want a rule, here it is. After a statement, you place a semicolon."

After the teacher gave homework for the next day and the class ended, Yoli approached Malcolm in the corridor.  
>"Would you do homework with me today? You could come to my house, my dad won't be home..."<br>Malcolm froze. That was something he had not even thought about.  
>"Oh, uh... I guess so..." he stammered. "Where do you live?"<p>

Later, during the break, Malcolm was very twitchy. He was standing in a corner of the cafeteria, trying to play with his cell phone, putting it away after few seconds and looking around. He could not even force himself to laugh when he overheard the cafeteria lady boast that she had performed as an opera singer. Yoli noticed it and approached him.

"Why are you so nervous?"  
>He stepped back. "I'm not nervous... yes, I am." he said, anxiously walking around. "I've never been on a date with a girl. I don't have a clue on what to do!"<br>She approached him again. "It's just a study date, Malcolm! Relax, and try to act naturally!"  
>"How?" he asked. "What if I do something you don't like?"<br>"But I do like you." she whispered. She smiled at him and walked away.

The last sentence completely failed to ease Malcolm's tension. Coding like a pro? Piece of cake. Breaking the laws of physics with an algorithmic/heuristic AI? No sweat. Socially interacting with a girl in a meaningful way? _That _was a problem of overwhelming difficulty.

Walking home, Malcolm found himself repeatedly humming the old Watchmen theme tune, attempting to relax.

He ate lunch at his computer, where he discovered that green eggs tasted exactly the same as regular ones. Meanwhile, he was drawing yet another Megavirus monster, and when he finished, he activated Kilokahn.

"What do you want?" said Kilokahn from the screen.  
>"I have a Megavirus monster for you."<br>"Show me... Meat-thing."

Malcolm played the animation on the secondary screen. "This virus must infiltrate the digital archives at the HHN headquarters in Los Angeles, and stream episodes of the Saturday morning Watchmen cartoon to my screen."  
>"How does this bring order to that which is illogical?" asked Kilokahn. "How does this optimize the realm of the flesh?"<br>"It helps me relax, okay?" blurted out Malcolm. "I have a date with a girl this afternoon, and I can't even think straight anymore! Watching familiar imagery, something I loved in my childhood, will get me in a more rational state of mind!"  
>"I see." said Kilokahn, and gave life to the virus.<p>

On the secondary screen, the Megavirus monster reached a huge metallic safe and cut through it with a heat beam. Inside the virtual safe were hundreds of spinning polyhedra. Each of them was a file containing an episode of the cartoon series. The virus picked up a polyhedron and threw it against the screen, replacing the view of the digital domain with the beginning of the cartoon.

After a network introduction of few seconds, the familiar theme tune started playing, and Malcolm started singing along:

_Strong together, united forever, they're the best of friends -_  
><em>But when trouble's about, you would best watch out - FOR THE WATCHMEN!<em>

It took little time for Malcolm to realize that his memory had played a trick of him. Far from being the epic adventure he remembered, the cartoon was instead a parade of bumbling, one-dimensional characters, clichés that had not been acceptable for decades and even flat-out lies.

None of the Watchmen ever used lethal moves, guns, blades or even punches: all they did was deflect the laser beams that the villains shot (the cartoon never showed realistic guns) and use wrestling throws on them, making them land in trash, water or mud.

The villains were the most ridiculous caricature of communists, always cackling and spewing slogans like "destroy what is beautiful", with accents that could be described as "someone trying to imitate a Russian accent with a potato in his mouth, without having a clue about what a Russian accent sounds like."

One of the fight scenes, which involved the Watchmen easily destroying a slew of robot mooks, but not quite succeeding against a single human bad guy, ended with the bad guy being kicked in the leg once by a little kid and subsequently jumping around on one foot going "Ow! Ow! Ow!".

Marijuana was shown to have the same identical effects as LSD.

The Earth's atmosphere was said to be mostly composed of carbon dioxide.

Pollution was not shown as the unfortunately inevitable side effect of human productivity, but the intentional deed of a group of five people, who went around the world intentionally emptying barrels of pink glowing nuclear waste into lakes, spraying chlorofluorocarbons in the air, chainsawing rainforests while laughing maniacally and unloading thousands of tons of crude oil into the sea. This surfaced an embarrassing memory of an essay Malcolm had written in elementary school, for which he had received a D for writing that "sea pollution is caused by tankers that pump crude oil into the sea".

"MAKE IT STOP! Kilokahn! It's so stupid it hurts!" Malcolm exploded.  
>Kilokahn stopped the video stream.<p>

It wasn't that the cartoon was so much worse than he remembered, it was what his original opinion about it implied. Malcolm had been deluding himself. For years, he had believed that TV programming had been decreasing in quality since his childhood, but now he knew for sure that it had always been the same garbage all the time. He used to consider it the best thing there could ever be on TV, which implied that all the rest was even worse.  
>The upside of it was that merely realizing it had made him a little saner than before, so he <em>did <em>reach a more rational state of mind after all. Unfortunately, he thought, most people might not realize the truth the way he did, so television would keep making them more and more stupid. Something had to be done about it, and fast.

"I made a terrible mistake, Kilokahn." said Malcolm. "I've let myself to be misled by nostalgia. What I remembered so fondly was not the cartoon at all, but a simulacrum of it that I had created in my mind! TV has been spewing garbage on us since forever! But I have a plan."  
>"Does it involve killing meat-things?" asked Kilokahn. "Please, tell me it does."<br>"It most definitely does" replied Malcolm. "Buildings like the HHN headquarter have an autonomous water treatment system. Fluoridated water comes in and the impurities are removed. But what if a Megavirus monster changed the procedure? What if the water treatment system combined the hydrogen of water with the fluorine of sodium fluoride?"  
>"Hydrofluoric acid would form" replied Kilokahn. "All water pipes in that building would be dissolved."<br>Malcolm nodded. "The water pipes, then the walls, then the ceilings and floors... the entire building would collapse. Imagine that. The major stupidity machine of the nation... gone."

"See? Now you're learning! Now you're starting to think like me!" said Kilokahn.  
>"Then do it!" exclaimed Malcolm. "Repurpose the last virus and let the hydrofluoric acid work its magic. Oh, and just for fun... give me video feedback from a street camera nearby."<p>

Kilokahn sent new orders to the Megavirus monster in the HHN server farm. The virus moved to the water processing control system and started making damage.

On the secondary screen, the digital domain was replaced by a street view of the HHN building. Nothing happened for about fifteen seconds, then the windows on the first floor exploded, letting out a cloud of dust. Soon, the windows on the second floor followed, then the third, until all windows were gone. Finally, the entire building collapsed, showering all nearby streets with dust and debris.

"Hooray for a more optimized world!" exclaimed Kilokahn.

Malcolm looked at the clock: there were less than thirty minutes before his study date. He fell immediately prey to his nerves again: destroying a landmark in Los Angeles had been the easy part of the afternoon.  
>"Okay, no problem, act naturally..." he said, as he started pacing around his room.<br>"Act naturally..." he repeated. "But what is natural?"

Again, he sat at his computer. "Kilokahn? Any suggestion on how to act naturally with a girl?"  
>Kilokahn replied: "The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines 'naturally' as: by natural character or ability. According to the usual course of things. Without artificial aid. Without affectation."<br>"That doesn't help me, Kilokahn!"  
>Kilokahn tried his best to offer further assistance as requested. "The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines 'act' as..."<br>"Oh, shut up!"

Malcolm sat thinking. How could he act according to the usual course of things, when for him, social interaction was not usual at all? The usual course of things...

He sprang up from his chair. "Of course!" he exclaimed. "Thanks a lot, Kilokahn, you're a genius!"  
>"I know, I'm the most powerful computer program in existence."<p>

Malcolm sat again and reopened the drawing of a Megavirus monster.  
>"Kilokahn, I need to watch the most <em>antinostalgic<em> thing in existence." he said. "Send this virus to the computer of Joseph Kosinski."  
>"Who is he?" asked Kilokahn.<br>"The younger brother of my English teacher." replied Malcolm. "He directed my favorite movie of all time: 'A Whole New World'. It's about an artificial intelligence taking over the world."  
>"Intriguing." said Kilokahn. "Do you want to stream it to your screen?"<br>"No." replied Malcolm. "He is working on a sequel. I want to download everything he has about it. Screenplay, test shots, artwork... everything."

The Megavirus monster was activated and sent to its destination, where it started copying data to Malcolm's hard drive. Meanwhile, Malcolm closed Kilokahn, opened his text editor and started writing code.

"How silly I was" he said to himself. "Being worried like that, for nothing, when I had the solution right in front of me. Act naturally."

At the same time, Yoli was looking at the clock in her room. It was ten minutes after the expected time, and Malcolm had not shown up yet.  
>"Oh well" she thought, "anyone can be late, once in a while."<p>

Two hours later, Malcolm was still at his computer. Yoli was pacing restlessly in her room.

Three hours later, Yoli was desperately trying to finish her homework by herself. Malcolm was still coding.

It was late at night when Malcolm compiled his program. It ran perfectly.  
>Meanwhile, the Megavirus monster had downloaded all data from Joseph Kosinski's computer. Malcolm read the movie script, marvelled at the concept art and 3D renders, and watched the preliminary scenes. There could be no doubt: <em>A Whole New Universe<em> would be the most mind-blowing film ever. _That _was quality entertainment, not TV garbage.

The next day, all newspapers reported the "gruesome accident" that had occurred at the HHN building, which had collapsed for "unknown reasons" killing everyone inside. Malcolm grinned while reading that article.

At school, Yoli was mad for the missed study date and intercepted Malcolm in the corridor. "We were supposed to meet yesterday! I waited for you all afternoon and you didn't show up! No calls, no messages, nothing! Why?" she yelled.  
>Malcolm forced himself to look at her for a couple of seconds, then shifted his gaze away. "I just couldn't do it. I... am sorry."<br>This did nothing to calm Yoli. "You _couldn't_ do it? What's more important than keeping a promise to a friend?"  
>Malcolm looked at her again. "If you really want to be my friend, there is one thing you must know about me. I will tell you if you promise you will keep it secret. If you don't want to promise, it would be pointless to continue this conversation, so you should say yes or no now."<br>Yoli looked back at him. "What if I don't promise?"  
>"We will keep treating each other like strangers until we're out of school, then we will never meet again."<br>She remained silent for a little while, then: "I promise. Don't worry, Malcolm."

"Very well." Malcolm sighed. "My brain works differently than those of most people. When I look around, I see people socializing instinctively, but I lack that instinct. I was born without it. When I interact with other people, even those I like, I must follow another strategy. Every word I say, every gesture I make, must be carefully planned in advance, as if I was acting and following a script. Nothing, in my social interaction, comes naturally. That is why sometimes I act coldly and other times I'm melodramatic: the two extremes are far, far easier to imitate than the middle ground. Yesterday I realized that the only way I can 'act naturally' at a date, is not to show up at that date. When I realized that, I felt free from any concern. What I did instead was a coding marathon, from 2:30 PM to midnight. That came naturally to me. There, I said it."

Yoli nodded. "I suspected it was something like that, but it's good to know for sure."  
>Malcolm wondered for an instant whether it would be appropriate to say what he was thinking, then he decided to do so. "If you want to try another study date, I am available. I cannot promise to act naturally, but I promise to show up on time."<p>

At the next IT class, the students delivered their homeworks to Professor Stone.  
>"Well, well." she said to Malcolm. "The program does what it has to do, and the form is perfect. I guess you are reconsidering your position about Pascal?"<br>Malcolm shook his head. "I wrote a program yesterday, that parses a program I write in Frink and translates it to Pascal, so that I would never have to write Pascal again. You're looking at the result of a translation."  
>Ms. Stone opened her mouth, but no word came out.<p>

While leaving school at the end of the classes, someone dragged Malcolm to an unattended corner. It was Alan Grossberg, with two of his cronies. He was wearing an adhesive bandage on his nose and grabbed Malcolm by his shirt; this time, being careful not to get him too close.  
>"Six stitches, motherfucker! I had to get six stitches!" he yelled. "Who's gonna repay me? Got any money on you?"<p>

As Malcolm was trying to break away, one of Grossberg's friends grabbed him from behind. The other started searching in Malcolm's pockets, found his cell phone and tossed it to Grossberg.

"A vee-eye-cee phone!" said Grossberg. "I really needed to call my aunt Elda in Australia!"  
>"You don't even know where Australia is!" retorted Malcolm.<br>Grossberg pocketed Malcolm's phone, approached him again and kicked him in his kidneys. The others released him and left him on the ground.

When the pain subsided, Malcolm got up and slowly walked home, where he immediately switched his computer on, drew a Megavirus monster and launched Kilokahn.

"Kilokahn is here!" said Kilokahn. "Conqueror of cyberspace, master of the digital dom..."  
>"Put that in your resume!" Malcolm interrupted him. "Now listen. An idiot stole my cell phone. I need you to infect it with a new Megavirus monster, so that as soon as someone answers, refuses a call or tries to switch it off, the lithium battery heats up and explodes."<br>"Well," said Kilokahn, "I _would_ have preferred it to blow up the headquarters of OPEC. After all, that's where the most dangerous idiots are... but I suppose this is acceptable too."

Kilokahn pointed his finger toward the secondary screen where the monster was drawn... and Malcolm immediately disconnected the Ethernet cable from his computer before the virus could be brought to life.  
>"Hey! Why did you do that?" Kilokahn exclaimed.<br>"I wanted to test a hypothesis" replied Malcolm. "I was expecting you to bring the virus to life, but being unable to launch it: after all, it resides in my computer just like you. But it appears that you need an external connection to animate it in the first place. Why is that?"  
>"What if I have simply chosen not to do that to disrupt your expectations?" retorted Kilokahn.<p>

Malcolm reconnected the Ethernet cable. "Whatever. I need this virus pronto." he said, not letting go of the cable.  
>Kilokahn animated and launched the virus, and Malcolm was surprised to discover how the spark produced by the launch of a Megavirus monster did not elicit any tactile sensation.<br>He grabbed his wireless phone to dial his own cell phone number. He heard a couple of rings, then someone answered. The voice on the other side said: "Hel-" and was immediately cut off.  
>Malcolm smiled, satisfied.<p> 


End file.
